• President Donald Trump hinted at a potential trade deal with China amid ongoing tariff tensions.
• The trade war has escalated tariffs on China up to 245%, affecting US-China economic relations.
• China and the US are seeking new global trade partners to strengthen their positions.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he expects an agreement "over the next three to four weeks" that would end the escalating trade war with China.

"I believe we're going to have a deal with China," said Trump during an executive order signing session in the Oval Office alongside Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. "I think we have plenty of time."

There was no immediate confirmation from Beijing on whether a deal is likely to happen. And Trump dodged questions on whether China's leader, Xi Jinping, made the overture to end the tariffs battle.

This is the first time since Trump increased tariffs on China — up to 245% — that the possibility of a deal has appeared on the horizon.

"It's a game between China and the US in terms of who's going to blink first," Nick Vyas, the founding director of USC Marshall's Randall R. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute, told Business Insider before Trump's Thursday remarks. "China feels that they have all the cards to continue to hold out, and President Trump feels that he has power, because we consume more from China than China consumes from us."

"Both of these cases are true, and one has to just wait and watch and see which reality will end up shaping up in the end," he added.

China's upper hand? Its system of government

Supply chain and geopolitics experts have told Business Insider that Xi may have more time and leverage than Trump.

"Xi can make life difficult for some American tech companies and for farmers in the Midwest, but the damage to China by the US could be much worse," said Andrew Collier, a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. "On the flipside, the political pressure on Trump in a democracy is likely to be much higher once people realize how bad the economy and markets are."

"China's authoritarian system is an advantage here," he added.

Vyas said that while Trump's term ends within four years, Xi is the lifetime president of China with a "long horizon."

Xi doesn't have to worry about elections or consumer sentiment, which could make this a "long, drawn-out battle," Vyas added.

Vyas also noted that China has dominance in the EV market and controls 85% of the capacity to process rare earth minerals, which would impact the US's defense capacities and AI ambitions if China completely cuts off that supply.

A history of trade conflict

Trump has a history of raising tariffs on China in attempts to reduce the US trade deficit and bring back manufacturing jobs.

In 2017, his administration began investigating China's trade practices and, in 2018, imposed a 25% tariff on certain Chinese exports, such as electronics and auto parts.

In February this year, Trump targeted China with tariffs twice, resulting in 20% in duties on China by the end of the month. On April 2, Trump again hit China with 34% tariffs. After China responded with tariffs on US exports, he then hiked this figure to 125%, then 145%, and now up to 245% according to a White House document.

China has announced a 125% counter-tariff on US goods by April 11 and halted exports of rare earth elements critical to US defense industries.

Previous efforts to reduce trade deficits with China have yielded limited results. In 2024, the trade deficit was about $295 billion, lower than $375 billion in 2017 but still more than double the total amount of US exports to China in a year.

Both the US and China are courting other countries

With the US taking a harder stance on global trade, Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that China is seeing "a diplomatic opportunity" to launch "a charm offensive."

"Conversations between the EU and China seem to have taken a softer tone," said Mazzocco. "There's hope on Beijing's side that by showing they are a more status quo, stable, reliable trading and global partner, countries are going to feel reassured, and it's going to improve its foreign relations, like with the EU, where there's been a lot of tension."

After meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Beijing last week, Xi embarked on a tour across Southeast Asia to sign deals on infrastructure and trade. Xi's stop in Malaysia led to deals on AI, rail connectivity, and the export of coconuts.

EU leaders are also planning to travel to Beijing for a late July summit with Xi, which Mazzocco says could be a chance for China to acknowledge it has a structural issue of overproduction and make commitments to address it.

However, Mazzocco added, it is unlikely Southeast Asian countries will replace the US with China as a trading partner, because China doesn't have a strong enough internal demand from consumers to absorb imports from overseas.

The US is also in talks with leaders of the EU. At the White House on Thursday, Trump told Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that a deal between the EU and US would "100%" be reached "at a certain point."

Mazzocco points out that unpredictability of Trump's policies may be harmful for striking a deal, and runs the risk of having US allies quietly pull back the alliance in the long run.

"We seem to understand that part of the goal is to extract concessions from trading partners, and those concessions may be economic or defense related, but the unpredictability is unhelpful." said Mazzocco. "This is really dangerous because it could really undermine business sentiment globally, and could also in the long term incentivize US trading partners to be a little less reliant on the US, diplomatically and on trade."

Senator Van Hollen says he met with Abrego Garcia on Thursday as he fights for his return back to the United States.

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Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, per social media posts by the Maryland Democrat.

Why it matters: Van Hollen said he was twice denied requests to visit Ábrego García at the high-security prison for terrorists that the El Salvador prison the legal U.S. resident is being held at as the Trump administration evades courts' orders to facilitate his release, despite conceding that he was deported in an "administrative error."

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• The Trump administration has accused Ábrego García of being a member of the MS-13 gang, though he has not been convicted of gang-related crimes.

What they're saying: "I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance," Van Hollen said in posts to his social media accounts.

• I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.
• Representatives for the White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

The Trump administration must work to return a wrongly deported Maryland man, a federal appeals court said Thursday, rejecting a request to block a lower court's order requiring his return.

The big picture: The administration is resisting court orders to return Kilmar Armando Ábrego García from a notorious Salvadorian prison, despite conceding that the legal U.S. resident was deported in an "administrative error."

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• The U.S. government has accused Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national legally living in Maryland, of being a member of the MS-13 gang. He has not been charged with gang-related crimes.

Driving the news: The unanimous ruling from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis' decisions outlining the next steps for Ábrego García's return.

• "The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," the ruling said.
• "While we fully respect the Executive's robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court's recent decision," the order states.

Context: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had asked the appeals court to temporarily halt enforcement of a lower court's orders requiring Ábrego García's return.

• The Trump administration has argued that courts don't have the power to dictate specific steps to the executive branch — so, effectively, no one can initiate the process to return Ábrego García.
• The Supreme Court ruled last week that the U.S. must "facilitate" his release. But the Trump administration argued that simply means if El Salvador asks to send him back, the U.S. has to help.
• "'Facilitate' is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear," the appeals court said.
• El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he can't return Ábrego García to the U.S., nor will he release him within El Salvador.

Zoom in: "The federal courts do not have the authority to press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy," the government argued in its filing to the appeals court.

• Rather, they argued, the courts only have the authority to order the executive branch to "facilitate" a return.
• "As that term has long been understood and applied, that means the Executive must remove any domestic barriers to the alien's return; it does not, and constitutionally cannot, involve a directive to take any act upon a foreign nation," the filing said.

More from Axios:

• Timeline: The case of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador
• Senator again denied entry to El Salvador prison to visit mistakenly deported man
• Judge in deportation case threatens Trump admin with contempt of court
• Mistakenly deported man will be removed from U.S. if he manages to return: DOJ

Here's everything to know about the latest thriller series to hit Disney+ and Hulu, "The Stolen Girl."

• Ivan Leong won a $1 million lottery when he was 23.
• After years of comfortable insurance work, he quit to open his own Cantonese roast pork eatery.
• Eight years on, he's rethinking his choice of laboring behind a hot oven and working 11-hour days.

Ivan Leong, 37, used to work as an insurance agent — a job with crisp button-ups, perfume, coffee chats, and flexible schedules. Ten years later, as he slices up juicy pork in his own Cantonese roast pork stall, he said that his life now is a far cry from what it was.

Leong started out as an administrative assistant at a recruitment firm, a job he described as "stagnant." One day in 2013, his colleagues persuaded him to join them in buying lottery tickets.

By a stroke of luck, the lottery ticket he bought with 10 Singapore dollars won him SG$1 million. The sudden windfall gave him the confidence to quit his job, and he gave his one-month notice shortly after.

His first order of business was buying a government-subsidized apartment with his fiancé. Even with the lottery money, buying a condominium or private property was out of the question, he said, as was retiring early.

"Honestly, one million is never enough, especially in Singapore," Leong said. Singapore, a tiny island in Southeast Asia, is one of the world's most expensive cities.

Then, after trying his hand at selling insurance products for a couple of years, Leong felt that he wanted to build something of his own and be his own boss for a change.

"In Singapore, if you start an F&B business, you can be a boss straight away. It's the fastest way," he said with a laugh.

He said that he loved cooking as a kid, particularly during Lunar New Year. To get back into it, he cut his teeth at his friend's roast pork shop in Singapore's Ang Mo Kio neighborhood.

In 2018, he and his wife opened their own roast pork, or char siu, shop in Bukit Merah, a residential area in the south of Singapore. Over the next few years, he would close his original outlet and open two others — one in Woodlands and another in Ang Mo Kio, both of which are residential districts.

Now, he easily spends 11 to 12 hours behind the counter daily. Feeding a hungry lunch crowd means reaching his stall at 7 a.m. daily, and he rarely leaves before 6 p.m.

The roast pork in question

Some key things set Leong's roast pork apart.

He said that he had always found char siu in other restaurants disappointing and laden with food coloring. He also did not like that customers could not choose the type of meat they wanted.

For him, good char siu meant roasting the meat for up to two hours in a charcoal oven instead of the regular 45 minutes. He also lets patrons choose between three different types of pork: fatty, lean, or half-fat.

For Leong, an average day involves earning around $1,500 from each outlet. In terms of meat, that means selling five slabs of roast pork, 60-80 strips of char siu, and about seven whole chickens.

I got the SG$8 "trio" dish to sample all three types of meat he sold at his stall. The dish consisted of chicken and two types of pork over fragrant rice, with fresh cucumbers and a bowl of hot soup.

The crackling pork skin was super crispy, balanced out by the tender meat under it.

The char siu itself was tender and coated with a sticky glaze, which paired well with the fragrant rice.

The third meat, the roasted chicken, was light and a good break from all the pork. The quantity was generous — I ended up taking most of it away in a doggy bag.

The most surprising part of the dish was the clear soup. It was salty, warm, and comforting, with boiled slices of vegetables at the bottom. It was a good contrast to all the meat.

Leong's regulars said his char siu was unlike those they'd had before.

Eddie Soh, 36, said that he's been eating at Leong's stall weekly since 2019. He said that Leong "raised the bar" for char siu for him, and he seldom eats the dish at other eateries.

Soh, an IT product manager, added that Leong's roast pork has become a staple in his Lunar New Year reunion dinners. He sometimes buys "as much as 2kg of char siu and 2kg of roast pork" for his family.

Andrew Ong, a 49-year-old officer with the Singapore Armed Forces, said he found Leong's stall last year and has been having it about thrice a week since.

Ong said the sides are just as good. The flavorful rice and jammy eggs, which deviate from the usual hard-boiled eggs served with char siu, add to its appeal.

It's not just regulars who rave about it — numerous food bloggers in Singapore have reported on Leong's stall.

Sethlui.com, a prominent local food publication, said in a July review of Char Siu Lang that the pork was "caramelized to perfection" and could compete with bigger Chinese food establishments.

In Singapore, small stalls like Leong's are known to serve world-class fare, including some that have been included in the Michelin Guide.

But for Leong, the endgame looks like getting out of the kitchen

For Leong, trading corporate life for days sweating in front of a charcoal oven was tough, with everything from time management to his physical appearance having to adapt.

"Lifestyle-wise, when I was doing financial advisory, I dressed up, used perfume, and wore all the brands. But in the shop, I just wear whatever is comfortable, maybe a pair of shorts, my company T-shirt, and I need to wear safety boots," he said.

The insurance job also allowed for more flexibility, where he could just "push the appointment, change the timings" for client meetings. But reaching his stall at 7 a.m. daily is a schedule that requires discipline.

So, when asked about the future of the business, Leong immediately answered, "My endgame is to sell the business to big organizations."

He said the long work hours are not something he thinks he can sustain long term.

But a return to a corporate job is off the table, he said. He wants to sell something of his own, explore new business ventures, and not have to answer to anyone.

"I would love to know, be able to do other things, not only spend my time in the store," Leong said. "In times to come, I really need to take a step back because I really feel like I spend too much time in this business."

The Calgary Flames will face the Los Angeles Kings in this NHL matchup on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena.

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• Carrie Kirby, now 51, is married but opted to celebrate turning 50 with a girls-only trip to Utah.
• They went canyoneering and horseback riding — two things her husband has no interest in.
• Having traveled with her husband for three decades, she now sees the benefits of taking separate trips.

As newlyweds in our 20s, my husband and I backpacked from Beijing to Paris, spending 14 weeks riding trains, buses, and boats. We were good travel partners. But as we've grown older, our travel desires have diverged: I itch for more adventure, while he prefers vacations spent reading and sketching.

For my 50th birthday, instead of coaxing my husband to join me on a hiking trip to a national park, I invited our 20-year-old daughter, who loves active adventures as much as I do. We also brought along a family friend — who, like me, left her husband behind.

The three of us headed to Utah to explore Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks. Along the way, I sent my artistic husband plenty of photos of the red cliffs against the blue sky.

He would have hated it all

When we won the permit lottery to hike up Zion's 1,488-foot rock formation, Angels Landing, I knew going with the girls had been the right choice — my husband has always been scared of heights. With narrow paths and sheer drop-offs, Angels Landing is considered one of the most terrifying hikes in America.

The four-hour trek to Angels Landing begins with Walter's Wiggles, a series of strenuous switchbacks. Once we entered the formation's upper section, we scrambled over rocks and tiptoed down paths only a few feet wide. The river snaking through the canyon below looked like the view from an airplane.

I have to admit I was a little shaky when I came to the short sections with no chains to clutch. My husband wouldn't have been scared at all — because he'd have turned back miles earlier.

We also signed up for another of my husband's most hated activities: horseback riding. We descended into the Bryce Canyon on mules and ponies, hoping they wouldn't lose their footing as we enjoyed intimate views of the park's famous hoodoos.

We went canyoneering as well, donning harnesses and helmets to rappel into otherwise inaccessible slot canyons. Stepping backward off a cliff edge to walk our way down, "Spider-Man" style was a lot of fun for us girls. For my husband? Canyoneering would have been another huge nope.

Breaking routines and learning new skills

During our adventures, the girls and I laughed and told stories nonstop. Although I love my husband, my spirit basked in the pause from everyday squabbles and responsibilities. Had he been there, I'd have put a full dinner on the table nightly. But with just us girls, we ate hummus straight from the container for dinner when we felt like it.

I married at 24 and have been a wife for more than half my life. One thing that happens when you couple young is specialization. When we travel together, my husband does most of the driving. On this trip and a few others, I've been able to improve my driving skills, although I still need to learn to change a tire on my own.

Now that our three kids are teens or young adults, my husband and I are discovering what great travel companions they are — each one shares different interests with us, including some we don't share with each other.

Last month, my husband took the two younger kids to visit our oldest in her college town for a hockey game — something that would've bored me to tears, but they all loved it.

Traveling separately has not only let us each pursue what we truly enjoy without guilt, but it's also practical: I'm self-employed with flexible time, while he has limited vacation, and with two kids still in high school, solo trips let one of us travel during the school year without leaving them alone.

It has strengthened our relationship

When friends and family find out one of us isn't coming on a trip, they often ask "Why?" I'm sure some worry that our separate wanderings mean we're headed for divorce.

In reality, our his-and-her trips have been a relationship boon. After 27 years of going through the same daily schedules together, we don't usually have a lot to say that the other hasn't heard before. Travel gives us new stories to share.

The night my daughter and I got home from our Utah adventure, my husband had a hot meal on the table and was excited to sit down and view photos.

"You have got to see this!" I found myself saying as we shared the view of Zion's towering walls. I told him how good the icy Virgin River water felt on our bare feet near The Narrows, and he said he'd love to experience that.

And maybe next time, we'll travel together. We could sign up for a bike tour — his favorite active pursuit — and skip the steep hikes.

Do you have a story to share about celebrating your 50th birthday? Contact the editor at [email protected].

• LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero said leaders need to use AI themselves.
• Shapero uses AI for meeting summaries, learning new topics, and meeting preparation.
• He said AI can't replace human judgment in recruiting and decision-making.

As LinkedIn rolls out artificial intelligence products, Dan Shapero, the chief operations officer, has also been trying out AI tools.

"My advice to business leaders is to get comfortable with the technology, to use it," he told Business Insider. "It is almost certain that you're going to be asked by your CEO or your board, what's your strategy for embracing AI in your area?"

He said the leaders who have good answers to those questions will be successful in the next decade.

Top tech leaders, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and OpenAI's Sam Altman, have said they use AI at work daily. Some, including e-commerce platform Shopify's CEO Tobe Lütke, have even mandated the use of the technology at their companies.

Shapero shared three ways he has been using AI to become more efficient in his day-to-day — and the aspects of his job he still prefers to do manually:

1. You can't be everywhere

One way Shapero said he uses AI is to summarize notes for meetings he misses.

"There are a lot of meetings that I think would've been valuable to attend, but sometimes I can't be everywhere," he said.

Shapero said he likes using Copilot for this because it is built into Teams, which the Microsoft-owned company uses. "I'll often use Copilot to summarize meeting outcomes to make sure that I can stay on top of the business."

2. Unfamiliar topics

Shapero also said he uses AI to learn about topics he is not well versed in.

"Oftentimes, I'll have to learn about new technologies, new legislation, and different industry trends," the COO said. "I find that having a conversation with ChatGPT can be very helpful in me learning deeply about a topic that I'm not familiar with."

3. Preparing for meetings

Shapero said he also likes using AI to cut down the time it takes for meeting prep. He said he uses LinkedIn's Account IQ product, which is geared toward sales roles.

"It takes all the news that's been going on around a company, all of the things they've shared on LinkedIn, their trends on who they're hiring, and it summarizes it into a one-page dossier that I can then read to be prepared for my discussion," he said.

Shapero said he also uses chatbots for advice on how to write and present ideas more succinctly. There's one big exception: He said he doesn't need LinkedIn's AI summary feature for writing his own profile, since he has lots of practice writing in first person.

Human parts of the job

Still, Shapero said there are parts of his job he cannot imagine AI doing, such as the later stages of recruiting.

He said that once AI helps him find and shortlist candidates, he thinks about questions like "How do I really assess whether they're a good fit for the job?" and "How do I have a conversation with them to convince them that we're a good match for them?"

He also said AI can't do leadership functions.

"While AI has shown that it can synthesize information, I'm not sure that it's shown that it can inspire a team or that it can connect with people at a deeper level," he said.

He said chatbots and AI tools also struggle with a lack of data, which makes human decisions more important.

"Ultimately it has to be you at the center, making the decision and seeing the path forward."

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The Trump administration threatened to revoke Harvard University's eligibility to host foreign students, tightening its squeeze on the school after campus leadership refused to cave in to its demands.

The big picture: The heightened pressure comes after the Trump administration cut $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to the university amid a broader campaign against elite higher education institutions.

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• Trump said earlier this week that Harvard should lose its tax exempt status, accusing the Ivy League school of pushing politics and ideology.

Driving the news: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned Harvard that its certification to enroll foreign students is "contingent upon" it complying with federal immigration rules, in a Wednesday letter to the university obtained by the New York Times.

• Noem wrote, "It is a privilege to have foreign students attend Harvard University, not a guarantee," and accused the university of creating "a hostile learning environment" for Jewish students.
• U.S. schools that host international students must be certified by the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP).

If the school fails to respond to record requests she made concerning student visa holders by April 30, "SEVP will automatically withdraw the school's certification," Noem wrote, noting the withdrawal will not be subject to appeal.

• Noem demanded information on student visa holders' known "illegal activity," "dangerous or violent activity" and "known threats to other students or university personnel," among other data.
• She also sought information "regarding each student visa holder's maintenance of at least the minimum required coursework to maintain nonimmigrant student status."

What they're saying: A Harvard spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Axios that the university is aware of the DHS letter.

• The letter, coupled with other actions against the school, "follows on the heels of our statement that Harvard will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," the spokesperson said. "We continue to stand by that statement."

Zoom out: In a Wednesday release announcing Noem's "scathing letter demanding detailed records on Harvard's foreign student visa holders' illegal and violent activities," DHS also said it revoked two grants totaling over $2.7 million to Harvard.

Catch up quick: Other American higher education institutions have complied with Trump administration demands in recent weeks.

• But Harvard's president, Alan Garber, turned the administration down, saying Harvard is committed to fighting antisemitism but that no government should stifle academic freedom.
• In its Friday letter to Harvard, the Trump administration outlined a series of demands, which included reforming governance and leadership, shuttering DEI offices and adjusting international admissions to "prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions."

Go deeper: Trump's pressure campaign against universities hits a Harvard-sized snag

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